Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Bloomberg has confirmation from Apple that he's back at work. Just a few days in the office a week to start with, whilst he recovers from his transplant. Bloomberg also reports that "during Jobs’s absence, Cook and a team that includes marketing chief Phil Schiller and design leader Jonathan Ive ran the operation." Didn't they do well? even though they broke the law buy not telling their investors about Jobs' operation.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Cult of Mac (it used to be on Wired.com's site) has uncovered some beauties hidden away in the new iPhone 3 software. As an iPod touch user, I've only come across the audio scrubbing (very useful when listing to the Adam & Joe Show podcast). The email address suffix buttons are a godsend too. Damn, that iPhone is getting more desirable every day. When's my O2 contract up for renewal again?

Friday, June 19, 2009

Only a few people (well, fifty in fact) were mad enough to queue outside Apple's flagship store this morning. And they were all served promptly at at opening time. And O2's twitter feed has announced that the blacks ones are outselling the white ones three to one. The Telegraph has reported that "the first person in line, an unnamed 19-year-old student at Imperial College, bought a white, 32GB version of the device." I remember when students were poor.Most potential iPhone 3GS customers already have an iPhone 3G and they'll still be stuck in their contract with O2. Couldn't Apple have delayed the launch until then?

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

They reckon it's uncrashable, but that didn't stop the installer crashing when I tried to install it on my Macbook.The first thing you'll notice is the coverflow-like Top Sites Page (above). History uses this way of viewing pages which really does make looking though your past for on old webpage really easy.Apple have also fixed around 50 security flaws (for the time being) in this new version.I haven't had chance to look at all 150 new feature this app has to offer, but if you want you can read about them here.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Everything on this iPhone runs two to three-times quicker. There's 100 new features, they say. There's no change in the form factor, but the camera has been bumped up to 3 megapixels with autofocus. You can tap to focus on a specific item. It has auto exposure, auto light balance and not forgetting auto macro (allowing close-ups to within 10cm). It also captures VGA video at 30fps with audio...and you can trim clips on the phone too (w00t). You can use voice-control for dialling calls and playing music (you'll sound silly but i guess it'll really come into play when you're at the wheel of a car). Battery life has been improved: 12 hours of 2G talk time or five hours of 3G talk time; nine hours’ use on Wi-Fi; 10 watching video; or 30 hours of audio.The phone should be here within the month on O2 as usual.

The iPhone 3.0 software has been given another cool trick: Lose you iPhone and you can send it a message so, hopefully, the person who found it will know who it belongs to (if they didn't nick it). You'll also be able to remotely wipe it's data if it has been stolen.

Apple didn't reveal a new 'lite' iPhone, but did say that the non-s version of the 3G iPhone will be made available for only $99.

The best thing about this announcement is that you'll be able to buy the 'tweaked' Mac OS X for a paltry sum of $29. I guess the price will rise due to Rip-off Britain exchange rates when it's sold over this side of the pond. The new version of Safari 4.0 should scream under Snow Leopard as its a 64-bit app. Also the Safari plug-ins will run as separate processes to the application so it'll should never crash.

So Apple went and beefed up the spec of the 13" Alu MacBook. You can see that they'd made it too damn powerful for it's own good, so they stuck a Pro after it's name. It even has Firewire 800, a back-lit keyboard and an SD card slot (someone's been doing their research). The 2.26GHz, 160GB HD model is priced at £899; the 2.53GHz, 250GB HD version is £1149. Both are available now.The new 15" Macbook has the SD-card where it used to have an ExpressCard slot (why?) the 17" MBP's battery and a new LED display. There's three configurations: 2.53GHz, 250GB HD, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - £1299.01; 2.66GHz, 320GB HD, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB - £1499; and 2.8GHz, 500GB, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB HD - £1699. All come with 4GB of Memory. The 17" MacBook Pro gets a 2.8GHz processor, 500GB HD and keeps it's ExpressCard slot - all for £1849.MacBook Airs also got a look-in. the 1.86GHz, 120GB SATA HD, is £1149. The 2.13GHz, 128GB SSD is £1349. Both are equipped with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card.So, that means that the only consumer notebook left is the white plastic MacBook. Surely there's some new offerings to look forward to; perhaps they left these for the return of Big Steve?

Saturday, June 06, 2009

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Steve Jobs will return to work by the end of June. This means that he will not be making a surprise appearance at new week's WWDC but his return is to coincide with a product launch of some sort. The WSJ also cites someone who has seen the upcoming iPhone in person, "reporting a faster processor and the expected video editing capabilities." The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off with a keynote address on Monday, June 8 at 10:00 a.m. (PST) led by Phillip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. I'll see you here.The (leaked?) picture above is from ispazio.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The Green Room have helpfully put together this 'info-graphic' to highlight every rumoured feature of the next generation of iPhone that may appear at next week's WWDC. A 3.2 megapixel camera, video and a 32GB option are the most likely to happen. That's fine by me.There are also rumours of a 4GB 'lite' version of the phone floating around too (but not mentioned here).